


Our Glorious Ancestors

by SchrodingersKitten



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternian History, Rebellion, Seadwellers errywhere, Troll Culture, Troll Myth, frame story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:35:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SchrodingersKitten/pseuds/SchrodingersKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once in a perigree, a cabal of seadwellers gather to share their stories. Some had their knowledge handed to them in gift-wrapped box, while others had to scour the depths of Alternia for it.</p><p>They settle into the large sub-aquatic estate. There is a newcomer among them, a girl. She has a story of one of the most feared mages in all of Alternia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Glorious Ancestors

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically the biography of my fantroll's ancestor. Enjoy.

It was 45 hours after the beginning of the third perigree of the second dim season. Seadwellers of ages between 4 sweeps and 8 filtered into the underwater mansion. Some of them believed that Alanti's hive was the grandest on Alternia, second only to that of the heiress. Most of them knew the way; those that didn't were led by the dolphin-lusus into the Alanti's grand parlor. It was cluttered with objects from the surface; guitars, and grand piano, clocks, taxidermied specimens that had become waterlogged and damaged, and even a grand sword that was amazingly designed to survive in salt water.

Fourteen violet bloods settled into seats and other locations around the parlor; some sat on the gold-colored sofa, brushing away salt residue before sitting. Others simply floated, air sac and lungs filled just enough to keep them suspended. Alanti himself chose the large gold and violet chair beside the piano; all other seats faced him, yet he was set apart from the group. He clapped his hands, the sound distorted from being underwater, and grimaced; he had recently taken a vacation to the surface and found returning to undersea life difficult at times. Alanti was a wiry troll with sharp features of 8 and a half sweeps, almost ready to be sent off the home-world. He was famous for eccentricity and a love for history.

Alanti rose, cleared his throat, and began, "Welcome back, all of you. This will be the twenty-eighth meeting of the Ancestor Research Foundation, and I'm glad to see some familiar faces. I am also pleased to welcome our newest member, Hekati Arsalu." He gestured to a cramped couch, towards a girl sandwiched between two younger trolls. She was dressed in a long sleeved black dress, her sign glowing a proud violet over her left breast. She wore a series of necklaces in every color of the hemospectrum save fuchsia, and her long, yellowed nails had been painted black and white in an alternating pattern,her hands covered in pen marks. Her black hair was chin-length and her horns reminded everyone of auger shells. There was the din of murmured greetings.

"So, Hekati, do you know anything of your ancestor? Do WE know anything of your ancestor?" asked Alanti. Youngsters often claimed some great historical figure as their ancestor, no matter how unlikely the relation seemed. Alanti didn't expect much more from this girl. Hekati smiled a wide, disconcerting smile, jagged teeth flashing, her voice loud and cheerful, "Depends. Do you know anything about the Wrathful?" There was a stunned silence.

It was Elatin who finally spoke up. "Do you mean to tell us," he started, "that you are claiming one of the most feared and reviled trolls in history as your ancestor?" Hekati simply strugged. "There are those who claimed more vicious rebels and criminals as their ancestors. How many Spinneret Mindfang descendants have you met?" There was more murmuring. Alanti asked, "How did you learn of your ancestor?" Hekati's smile grew even wider, as if her face were trying to split in two. "I met her," she said.

"The Wrathful would be an old lady now, of course. But you could still see our resemblance. The horns are what really give it away, although I suppose spirals aren't the rarest horn shape to have. Anyway, I met her while exploring the abyss.

Most trolls aren't capable of swimming so deep, although a few of us are. It's actually a bit of a skill. You have to expel ALL of the air from your lungs and air sacs, so that when you go too deep the water pressure isn't all like "POOMF!!!" and crushes you into little pieces of sushi. I happen to have that talent and built my hive deeper than most trolls can even see, into a system of underwater caverns. My lusus likes the heat from the underwater vents, see, so I had to build my hive deeper than a philosopher.

Turns out, the trenches are where the Wrathful has been hiding all this time. When I first saw her, she was just a shadow in the distance, darting from cave to cave. I thought she was some strange type of marine life! I was really excited, I love unusual species and genetic aberrations, so I spent a lot of time trying to track her down. After a few weeks of hunting, I realized she was sentient. At this point I just thought she was some strange type of lusus, it had never even crossed my mind that a troll besides me might live so far down! So I started leaving her food. I would poison some fish and leave them some distance from a vent. After a few weeks of this, I finally got to see her. I was really surprised to find out it was a troll!

She was dressed in rags made from kelp, but I didn't really register that. What struck me first was that her horns were just like mine! It took me a long time and a lot more fish to finally get her to talk, but when she did I knew this was my ancestor.

She had been in hiding for more than three hundred sweeps. If we were of a lower caste, I wouldn't have been able to meet her! She told me all sorts of stories, about her life, mostly. But also of things to come. Of stars falling from the sky and of The Speaker screeching the heiress's name. She told me that a mustard blood would save our species, but just barely. She told me Her Imperious Condescension would escape the glub, only to die later, fighting a strange, hornless race for ultimate power. Her prophecies were horrible, but in my core, I knew they true.

And now that I teased you with knowledge of the future, I think it's time to tell her story. That's why we're here, right? To talk about the lives of our ancestors?

She was born a long time ago, as ancestors tend to be. Her hatch name was actually Tiresa, and she was born blind. She said that she had to be blind, that it was the price of being a prophet of Doom, but that she was lucky to be born that way. Most other prophets lost their sight violently and painfully, she said.

As a wriggler, she had a fondness for the lowbloods. They never thought poorly of her disability, and they would often pay her for a prophecy or two, no matter how horrible. The aristocracy just saw this as another excuse to shun her. As an adult, however, she was allowed to work alongside the Empress herself.

The Empress saw her as a valuable commodity. A highblooded psionic! She would write down prophecy after prophecy for the Condescension, foretelling the downfall of every planet she saw to conquer. During her time on the battleship Condescension, Tiresa began a flushed romance with a certain brown blooded troll. I've heard more stories about those two than I'd care to, in rather uncomfortable detail, which I will spare you. The brown blood, however, was found a traitor.

At the trial, Tiresa begged and pleaded for his life. The Empress would have none of it. A legislacerator tried to defend him as well, and was beheaded immediately. The brown blooded man was sentenced to death by dismemberment, and Tiresa was made to watch.

She cried as the executioner chopped her lover limb from limb, of course. But the tears dried as she rose from the mud to utter her most heretical prophecy. She proclaimed that the planet would fall under the rule of Her Imperious Condescension, swore to it on the blood of royals. She culled a dozen souls in blind fury that day. She evaded arrest for a whole sweep until they found her on a recently conquered planet in a rubber suit obviously modeled after the Empress's attire. She put up no fight as the Legislacerators grabbed her arms and forced them behind her back. It took only moments for them to fall over, dead. She had coated the suit in a powerful poison before allowing herself to be arrested. She jumped into the sea, and the poison washed off. She made it into the deepest abysses, and only the Empress herself could follow. The Condescension refused to tell what happened down there. Some say she had killed the Wrathful, others say there was no trace of the murderess. A few say that the Wrathful and the Condesce fought, face to face, and the Wrathful forced the Empress into retreat.

I was told the latter by a very reliable source.

Tiresa wandered from planet to planet for several sweeps, only showing her face to civilization when absolutely necessary, and only to lowbloods. Everywhere she went, tragedy followed. One planet suffered an uprising from the enslaved natives. Another was struck by a meteor roughly the size of it's moon, seemingly appearing from nowhere. She became something of a legend, the ghost of a criminal who wandered the universe, foretelling doom and destruction.

Eventually, she made her way back to Alternia, where she took to the sea and hid in the depths. She learned ways to avoid the drones, and hunted for her food. She would survive like this for over three hundred sweeps, until she met me. I killed her so as not to be found a conspirator. It was her idea, even. She claimed she saw it in a vision."


End file.
